I appear to have missed reviewing Callix, the first figure in this year’s 200x mini subscription. Oh well, can’t look back now. So anyway we are off to the second release: Evil Seed. Normally such a release would cause a major gap in the Masters of the Universe fan collective because there are two very different versions of the character. The Filmation version looks absolutely nothing like this more modern version, and neither have had a toy until now. So naturally Filmation fans would feel a bit slighted that the modern version came first …. but, well … they already announced a Filmation Evil Seed as next year’s subscription exclusive! The fire was put out before it even started!

In a way it is a little relaxing to know that we are guaranteed (pending the new Filmation sub going through, but let’s be honest … it will) to get both incarnations of Evil Seed. Society generally breaks down when people start fretting over things like “wasted slots” or “this isn’t my version of the character.” Since both are coming we don’t have to compromise and try to figure out how to make one into the other. Instead we can just enjoy them both for what they are. This is one of those rare occasions where Mattel takes the stress off of us, instead of piling it on.

The modern or “200x” version of Evil Seed has quite an evil look. He’s not so much a seed anymore, but a full grown plant. His body is covered in vines and there are quite a few newly sculpted parts. Besides the head and overlay there is are new shoulder balls, forearms, hands, waist, lower legs, and feet. I’ll just assume that the whole required-shared-parts-to-keep-the-prices-down thing is a bit of an exaggeration, or that they shared so many parts early on that it funded all the new sculpts going forward! Whatever the case is I’m glad to see that Evil Seed doesn’t come with Trap-Jaw legs.

There are a few engineering choices that I feel worked out pretty well for our evil plant man. First, the overlay is not removable. Is this a good thing? In this case it is because we avoid the bodybuilder look since the vines that hold the overlay together don’t run under his armpits. The other cool design choice was to sculpt vines that hang down from his waist piece and wrap around his legs.

Evil Seed is a fun and well designed action figure. He probably isn’t going to win any “best of the year” awards unless Evil Seed Number One Fan has a vote in the matter. He’s a cool looking character, which seems to be the theme of the 200x mini subscription. Sure I have no idea who Prahvus is, but damn he looks cool and I want him badly! Evil Seed shipped with the 200x club exclusive head pack which we’ll take a look at in our next review.

Evil Seed is still available over at Matty as of the publish date of this review, thus making it a giant failure of a figure. You can also try your luck on Amazon if he does eventually sell out.

September’s lineup looks to have King Chooblah and Saurod. A yeti I had never heard of and the final movie figure Mattel has the rights to do. It should be a nice calm before the storm of expensive two-packs and Point Dread hit at the end of the year.